Revisiting the Transatlantic Triangle: The Constitutional Decolonization of the Eastern Caribbean

Revisiting the Transatlantic Triangle is a comprehensive study of the decisive 5-year period between 1962 and 1967 which witnessed the unfolding of an intense decolonization
dialogue between Britain and its far-flung Eastern Caribbean possessions at the height of the Cold War. The process of decolonization of the so-called “Little Eight”: Antigua-Barbuda, St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Montserrat, Dominica, St Lucia, St Vincent, Grenada and Barbados, is often overlooked in the annals of postcolonial Caribbean history. The missing ‘revolutionary’ element in this decolonizing narrative downplays the significance and complexity of the transatlantic dialogue leading to Britain’s withdrawal from this colonial melting pot; disengagement negotiations that were decisively shaped by the wider geopolitical imperatives of an uneasy Anglo-American relationship.

In this work, Raphael Cox Alomar tests the conceptual boundaries of the very meaning of decolonization as a socio-political phenomenon. Decolonization in this area of Britain’s colonial world was characterized by the gradual transfer of ‘instalments’ of sovereignty, rather than by the immediate devolution of full political authority. In the Eastern Caribbean, the decolonization process quickly became a multifaceted triangular dialogue entangling the Little Eight, London and Washington.

Revisiting the Transatlantic Triangle is an authoritative and insightful interpretation and presentation of the decolonization process in the Eastern Caribbean.